Vygotsky in Context p.46-p.51

Vygotsky’s theory was attacked by Zinchenko both in general and in particular. Zinchenko’s general, theoretical, critique centered on Vygotsky’s inclination to oppose the natural, biological functions to the higher, culturally mediated, psychological functions. Zinchenko argued that such an approach with ruin any attempt to understand the early stages of mental development as psychological rather than as physiological: “This loss of the ‘mental’ in the biological stage of development produced a situation in which the human mind was contrasted with purely physiological phenomena.” Vygotsky in this view, had overinflated the role of semiotic means of mediation: “[Vygotsky] began with the thesis that the mastery of the sign-means was the basic and unique feature of human memory processes. He considered the central feature of any activity of remembering to be the relation of the means to the object of that activity. But in Vygotsky’s thinking, the relation of the means to the object was divorced from the subject’s relation to reality considered in its actual and complete content. In the strict sense, the relation between the means and the object was logical rather than psychological. But the history of social development cannot be reduced to the history of the development of culture. Similarly, we cannot reduce the development of the human mind— the development of memory in particular— to the development of the relation of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ means to the object of activity. The history of cultural development must be included in the history of society’s social and economic development: it must be considered in the context of the particular social and social and economic relations that determine the origin and development of culture. In precisely this sense, the development of ‘theoretical’ or ‘ideal’ mediation must be considered in the context of the subject’s real, practical relations with reality, in the context of that which actually determines the origin, the development, and the content of mental activity.”

Concerning memory studies ( the focus of his own experimental work), Zinchenko suggested approaching involuntary memory as a psychological, rather than as a physiological, phenomenon and seeking its roots in children’s practical activities. Zinchenko’s experiments revealed that a child remembers either pictures or numbers depending upon which one of these two groups of stimuli plays an active role in the child’s activity, which in both cases was not an activity of memorization but of classification. Zinchenko emphasized that it is the involvement of the stimuli in the activity of classification that ensures their involuntary memorization. Involuntary memory in the child thus appeared, on the one hand, as a psychological rather than as a natural, biological function and, on the other hand, as a process intimately connected with practical activity, rather than with means of semiotic mediation. In order to challenge Vygotsky’s position, Zinchenko would have his readers believe— incorrectly, in my opinion— that Vygotsky saw no difference between natural, eidetic memory and involuntary memorization. Zinchenko also choose to ignore Luria’s cross-cultural study, which had showed, in the framework of the concept of psychological tools, a number of stages in the development of higher mental functions, one of them closely resembling the phenomenon of practical thinking revealed in the experiments of the Kharkovites.

The major theoretical disagreement between the Kharkovites position and Vygotsky’s was epitomized by Zinchenko’s statement that “social development cannot be reduced to the history of the development of culture.” While in Vygotsky’s theory, activity as a general explanatory principle finds its concretization in the specific, culturally bound types of semiotic mediation, in the doctrine of the Kharkovites, activity assumes a double role: as a general principle and as a concrete mechanism of mediation. However, in order to be socially meaningful, the concrete actions have to be connected in some way with human social and economic relations with reality. The task of elaborating this overall structure of activity was taken up by Leontiev.

The first sketch of Leontiev’s theory of psychological activity appeared in his Essays on the Development of the Mind (1947), which was followed by the very popular Problems of the Development of the Mind (1959/1982) and Activity, Consciousness, and Personality (1978). Leontiev suggested the following breakdown of activity— activity corresponding to a motive, action corresponding to a goal, and operation dependent upon conditions: “The main thing which distinguishes one activity from another, however, is the difference of their objects. It is exactly the object of an activity that gives it a determined direction. According to the terminology I have proposed, the object of an activity is its true motive.”

Entering human activity, its object loses its apparent naturalness and appears as an object of collective, social experience: “Consequently, it is the activity of others that provides an objective basis for the specific structure of individual activity. Historically, that is, in terms of its origin, the connection between motive and object of activity reflects objective social, rather than natural relations.” For example, food as a motive for human activity already presupposes a complex structure of the division of labor. Such a division provides a basis for differentiation of activities and actions: “The actions that realize activity are aroused by its motive but appear to be directed toward a goal…. For satisfying the need for food [one] must carry out actions that are not aimed directly at getting food. For example, the purpose of a given individual may be preparing equipment for fishing….” Motives thus belong to the socially structured reality of production and appropriation, while actions belong to the immediate reality of practical goals. “When a concrete process is taking place before us, external or internal, then from the point of its relation to motive, it appears as human activity, but when it is subordinated to purpose, then it appears as an action or accumulation of a chain of actions.” Psychologically, activity has no constituent elements other than actions. “If the actions that constitute activity are mentally subtracted from it, then absolutely nothing will be left of activity.” And yet activity is not an additive phenomenon: it is realized, but its overall social meaning cannot be devised from the individual actions.

At this point Leontiev’s concept of activity ran into serious theoretical trouble, which did not fail to catch the attention of his opponents, Sergei Rubinstein and his students. Which discussing human activity (Tätigkeit) in general, Leontiev used such categories of Marxist social philosophy as production, appropriation, objectivation, and disobjectivation. These categories apply to the social-historical subject, rather than to the psychological individual. At the same time, “actual relations with reality” were sought by Leontiev in the concrete practical actions and operations of the individual. The intermediate link between these two facets of activity－which Vygotsky identified as culture in general and the semiotic systems in particular－has been lost because of the rejection of Vygotsky’s position. Rubinstein, who noticed this gap in Leontiev’s theoretical schema, accused him of “illegitimate identification of the psychological problem of mastering operations with the social process of the disobjectivation of the social essence of Man.”

Rejecting semiotic mediation, and insisting on the dominant role of practical actions, the Kharkovites had obliged themselves to elaborate the connection between the philosophical categories of production and objectivation and the psychological category of action. Leontiev, however, was reluctant to provide such an elaboration, substituting for it a standard “sermon” on the alienation of activity under capitalism versus the free development of personality in socialist society. Moreover, when Leontiev made an attempt to outline the forms of human consciousness corresponding to activity, he chose to use the categories of meaning and sense, rather than those of internalized operations. In this way he unwittingly acknowledged the advantage of Vygotsky’s approach. This theoretical inconsistency also did not pass unnoticed by his critics, who claimed that “although the concept of object orientedness of the psyche aims at derivation of the specificity of psyche from the practical, and even the material, activity of society, actually it turns out that this practical activity…becomes identified as a system of society meanings….One important point remained, however, unnoticed here, namely, that although social modes of action do find their fixation in meanings, the latter represent the forms of social consciousness , and by no means the forms of social practice.”

Unfortunately, Rubinstein’s students made no distinction between Leontiev and Vygotsky, and their critiques remained mostly unheeded by those who chose to work in the framework of Vygotsky’s tradition. Moreover, this critique was often perceived as an assault on the cultural-historical theory as such.